


Just a Little Smaller

by Allegory



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mermaid! AU, SouHaru, Vanilla, because 4am fic continued at 1am 1 week later is fun to write, cute haru, lonely Sousuke, more like innocent haru
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4256133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allegory/pseuds/Allegory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Right in front of him—the king of the oceans. His teal eyes ablaze, almost a pair of tangible entities; Haru could feel them piercing through his very core.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Smaller

He had been a domineering presence.

All merfolk know. A behemoth, a massive creature spanning up to 10 metres. He overshadows every underwater inhabitant, polar ice caps to prehistoric water dwellers—they are nothing to him, nothing around him. The waves seem to submit as he swims through them, digressing, understanding that he owns the oceans.

When night comes, and the moon is nowhere in sight, some merfolk turn in out of raw, almost irrational fear that he splits the ocean, divorces the tides so that he can transverse the world. MV Joola. RMS Titanic. SS Eastland. Rumours say he has the power to topple any produce of human vanity during the dark of night.

After all, the whale shark- he is their ruler; a king born of mysterious origins, his imperial birth one that cannot be denied.

And so Haru, the little dolphin, wondered how he stood before the king.

It had happened only the day earlier. Haruka, a youth of modest origins, a lone traveller attracted to the influx of mackerel beyond merfolk civilization. He had never seen it before- a human vessel, colossal, historian of their architecture despite the growing mould and rusted brims. His interest was piqued immediately, almost as if bonded by an unexplainable age old connection.

He swam, quietly, gills pumping faster with each flick of his tail.

Haru had squeezed through an open window; not the most grandeur of entrances, but it was his first time. Inside, there was little room for him to move through. Furniture of the same shape and size lined up around him, emanating the same dim blue brood—seeing it now, he felt a slight prick to his chest. How could he have expected fantastical things? All those idealisations, the gilded screens, matted paintings—where were the stories of his dreams?

He tugged the end of his tail.

Stuck.

The dolphin’s tail had been caught in between a couple of the furniture. As Haru endeavoured to assess the situation, panic started surging within him. Whimpers escaped his throat as he feared the worst of his situation, as with each tug of his tail, a sharper pain shot through his nerves.

That was their first encounter.

The furniture screeched. One rectangular structure after another, they began to topple, sending loud shivers throughout the ship. The refrigerators crashed effortlessly into one another, galvanised metal scraping under each other’s edges.

Then in a flash, there he was.

Right in front of him—the king of the oceans. His teal eyes ablaze, almost a pair of tangible entities; Haru could feel them piercing through his very core. The small dolphin felt like he was shrinking beneath the king’s shadow.

“Who are you?” his voice resonated.

Haru’s eyes widened. He could not speak.

As in, literally: he was a mute.

Heart pulsing, Haru glanced around, trying to find some way to indicate his lack of a voice. There wouldn’t be an easy way to communicate this—most merfolk did not comprehend his inability. Haru attempted to point to his lips, shaking his head as he did.

A stream of bubbles escaped the king’s gills. He crossed his arms, and at this point Haru wasn’t sure if the king was annoyed or deep in thought.

“You can’t speak?” the king asked.

Haru bobbed his head immediately, lighting up with a knit of his eyebrows. The king swam closer, a sea green glow casting on him as he did. Rooted in place, the dolphin stayed where he was even until the king was mere inches away from his face. Haru could see now, better than ever: dark brown hair leafed over his eyes, strong, angular jaws and a titanic frame.

“It makes no sense for you to be here,” he continued, as if not noticing Haru’s ever building anxiety. “Why?”

For a while—long or short, Haru could not remember—he forgot. Absolutely devoid of any recollection, he had to look away for a moment, hoping the king would not be insulted by his attempt to think straight. At the growling of his stomach, though, the wire in his head snapped back in place.

Haru pointed to the window he came from. Mackerel—he’d have to show the king that he hadn’t meant to invade territory—although it had been his curiosity. As he managed to pop out of the window and to the other side, he turned around and noticed the king was still inside, long tail swaying side to side. He looked at himself, a lithe build compared to the king.

“I’ll come out from the other side,” the king said, his cool and composed look unstirring.

 

* * *

 

To the whale shark’s surprise, the little dolphin hadn’t left when he completed his detour. Perhaps it had been fear—that was the most plausible explanation, after all; not just anyone had the guts to flee from a king. But afterwards, as the dolphin continued to return day after day, week after week hanging out by his ship or hunting mackerel in the perimeter, the king started to become very curious.

He had been lazing by the top deck late in the afternoon. Far in the distance, the dolphin was setting up to catch an incoming school of mackerel. The king observed him—as he always did, silently—his attention undivided. There was a way in which the dolphin carried out his tactic; an elegant, ruthless tactic that would always happen within a flash, one which the king found…captivating, to say the least.

He mulled over it.

There was the pure skill, the very linear fashion, and the execution. Ah, yes—the execution.

The king considered it to be one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

And yet, when the little dolphin swam towards him, bits of mackerel clumsily scattered on his face, it felt like their first time meeting again; the merman who had trapped himself within the storage room, the merman who had thought the king could squeeze through a tiny window.

The whale shark chuckled at the thought. Meanwhile, Haru tilted his head to one side, wondering what had stimulated his rare laughter. He noticed that—he broke out a faint smile, dusting off the bones and smears of blood on the dolphin’s cheeks. The dolphin crooned into his gentle touch, sitting by him on the crow’s nest of the ship. A moment passed, both of them completely still, eyes just glazing over the water.

“You know, Haru—I’ve always been travelling alone,” the king murmured, voice just above a whisper. Still, it had been a sudden break, as if the king had outlawed some sort of divine contract. “Even as a baby whale shark, everyone was afraid of me. No one dared to speak to me. To even get near me. And it was frightening, being isolated like that.”

The dolphin turned to face his companion. The smile of his face had turned bitter—one full of nostalgia, melancholy—one that Haru had never recognized before.

“But I guess I’ve learnt to accept it over the years,” the king continued, after a bated pause. “It’s why I love these ships, too. How big they are. How small I feel when I’m inside them.”

When the king finished, Haru did not say anything. Nothing he could say, really. Instead, he leaned over on Sousuke’s shoulder.

The whale shark flinched, taken aback by the sudden skin-on-skin contact—but Haru did not move away. It had probably been the first time, for centuries of his entire life, to have made a physical connection with anyone or anything.

Quietness lingered in the water. Distant sounds of whales could be heard, each call, each wail rhythmic.

Here, deep in the ocean, the two realized a gradient was forming. They were being engulfed by a shade of orange, red and coral, much brighter than the usual coal blue. Haru gazed in awe of his surroundings—a spectacular mix of colours, perhaps a miracle to have descended upon them. Further up, somewhere far in the human world, Sousuke knew that there must’ve been a beautiful sunset taking place: a sunset he wanted to show to this clueless dolphin child.

And it was at this thought, that Sousuke pressed a little closer to Haru.


End file.
